


Little Bird

by TheGreatLibraryFangirl (Mazeem)



Series: Gaps in Canon [3]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, It is not, aimless angsty conversation, fuck it just post it, this was supposed to be fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 10:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19227496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazeem/pseuds/TheGreatLibraryFangirl
Summary: Set soon after the gang arrive at the swanky new Brightwell residence in Ash and Quill.Morgan goes to look for Thomas. She's worried about him. They all are.





	Little Bird

After dinner had passed with no sign of Thomas, Morgan went to look for him.  

She got quite turned around in the opulent Brightwell estate, but eventually found her way down to the workshop, fully expecting to find him there. She had her excuse for looking for him all ready to go. 

No such luck. 

Worry sunk its claws into her. Where was he? How was he? It wasn’t good for any of them to be alone right now, but Thomas least of all.  

She noticed that the equipment seemed to have been recently used. There was a distinct smell of sawdust in the air. Maybe he’d just left to go to the loo or something.  

For a few minutes, she waited to see if he would return. Her gaze roamed the room curiously. Presumably these were some of the components of the press, she thought, eyeing the smooth lengths of wood piled in a corner and the metal bars stacked neatly on a workbench. Thomas rarely worked from notes and there were none here – not that she would have understood any she’d seen. Artifex wasn’t her style.  

(She’d daydreamed about Lingua, once upon a time. Before.) 

Jess hadn’t told her much about what the press actually looked like when it was finished. Hadn’t even wanted to give her an overview of how it worked, which was frankly insulting; she was a sight better at keeping a secret than he was! 

She’d almost been tempted to go to Wolfe and ask, but she was fairly certain that it wouldn’t be a comfortable topic for him.  

(Nothing was a comfortable topic with Wolfe, but she’d keep trying.) 

Enough time had passed now that she was convinced Thomas wasn’t returning soon. Probably wasn’t in the loo, then. Unless he’s having a panic attack in there, her mind helpfully suggested. She winced and rubbed her arms, even though it wasn’t cold.  

Where to look now? 

She retraced her steps back up to the dining room and then the kitchens, just in case he had belatedly gone to get food. Still nothing, and the staff hadn’t seen him either. 

She gratefully accepted a sweet cake wrapped in a napkin from a friendly server; “in case you find him and he’s hungry,” and moved on. Added the napkin to the other carefully wrapped burden in her pocket. 

The most obvious place in some ways was the least likely in others; his bedroom. But she’d exhausted all other options, so she trudged up there.  

She knocked on the door. No answer. She gnawed the inside of her cheek as she debated trying the handle. If he wasn’t in there, it would be open. 

Unless he was in there, asleep, and hadn’t locked the door. _Wouldn’t_ lock the door. 

God, she could understand an aversion to locks.  

Stop dithering, she ordered herself. You’ll have to weather him being rightfully angry with you about privacy.  

The door opened, smoothly and silently. Well oiled. Everything in this ridiculous house was eerily perfect. She peered inside. 

The lights were on, turned up to maximum, but she could see Thomas lying on the bed, a half-open Blank next to him. One of those expensive permanent ones - of course.  

He was lying just as he had in Philadelphia, flat on his back.  

It looks like a corpse, Jess had whispered miserably to her the previous evening as they cuddled, and she’d shuddered and wanted to cry and the sucking death inside of her had woken up and asked for a victim. 

She shoved that thought away. She needed to tell Jess about that. But not yet.  

Thomas was asleep. Right. She’d try again later. 

As she retreated, her foot caught on the doorframe. It was a tiny noise, but it was enough.  

“Who’s there?” Thomas’s aggressive voice ruptured the silence, and she ducked behind the doorway out of sheer instinct. 

Just in time. 

The Blank hit the doorframe where she had been standing; Thomas’ mathematical and spatial visualisation skills clearly combining to triangulate her position. 

“Who’s there?” His voice was even louder now, if that was possible. Morgan was surprised servants hadn’t already come running. 

“It’s me, Thomas!” Her voice squeaked, high and terrified. “It’s Morgan!” 

There was a long, tense pause, then a guttural, “Scheisse.”  

“I’m sorry,” she called, turning her head towards the doorway. “I didn’t mean to take you by surprise. I’m really sorry.” 

No response. Only alarmingly heavy breathing.  

“I’ll come back later. I’m sorry,” she said, yet again. Her heart was pounding frantically in her chest. 

“Stay.” She could hear how hard the word had been forced out of his mouth, distorting what was certainly a plea into something sounding more like a command.  

“Ok.” She peered around the doorframe, tensed to withdraw at the slightest sign of another projectile.  

Thomas stood beside the bed. Loomed might be a better word. The material of his shirt was caught up in his clenched fists, and all the whites of his eyes were showing. The tension in the room was so thick she could barely breathe.  

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”  

He sat down slowly on the bed, his gaze still locked on hers. “I wasn’t asleep.” 

“I – I did knock,” she said tentatively. 

He blinked, then dropped his head into his hands, raking his fingers through his already-messy hair.  “Sorry.” His breathing was loud and unsteady. “Maybe I drifted off. I didn’t mean to.”  

Her heartbeat was starting to calm, as his bearing shifted away from aggression, but her concern was growing to take its place. Jess had spoken to her a lot of his worry about Thomas' mental state, but she didn't think he'd ever actually seen anything like this. 

“It was my fault. I should know better than to make you jump.” She smiled, trying to lessen the tension somehow.  

“Yes. I might throw a heavy projectile at you, apparently.” He curled his fingers even more tightly into his hair. “Come in, if you’re coming. And shut the door.”  

She did as he asked. “I’ll leave it unlocked,” she ventured. He tilted his head just enough to regard her with one wide blue eye, and grunted acknowledgement. 

He was shaking all over, and it was her fault. The right thing to say always eluded her, and never so much as now. “Can I sit with you?” she asked in the end, helplessly. 

He nodded. She settled next to him, and put her arm over the broad expanse of his shoulders. He was radiating heat and his heart was beating too fast. 

“I really am so sorry for startling you.” Pointless words, Morgan told herself angrily, but she tried to keep going anyway. “I just thought I’d see where you were. You didn’t come for dinner.” 

“Dinner?” He turned his head again, pulling it free of its protective cocoon of his hands just enough to meet her eyes. “What … what time is it?” 

“Probably about twenty-five to nine, now.”  

“Oh.” He took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. “I was in the workshop.” 

She nodded. “I saw you’d made a start.” She stroked his back and dropped a kiss on his clothed shoulder. His entire body was clammy with anxious sweat.  

“It wasn’t working. I couldn’t see anything clearly. I thought I’d take a break.” He took his trembling hands out of his hair to wrap them tightly around his middle instead. His blond bristles stood up at all angles now. “That was a mistake, maybe. My brain doesn’t seem to like being inactive these days.” 

Morgan reached up to kiss his cheek on an impulse; he flinched away. Her face flushed hot and, she knew, very red. 

“Sorry,” they both said at the same time. 

Tentatively, she reached for the hand nearest her. He let her peel it away from his side and squeeze it. 

They stayed like that for a few minutes, until she couldn’t feel his heartbeat rattling through his back anymore and his breathing and shaking had calmed.  

“Are you hungry at all? The kitchen gave me some cake for you …”  

She’d reached into her pocket as she spoke, but she’d pulled out the wrong thing. Her words floated away like ash on the air.  

Her excuse for coming to find Thomas. 

Her reason.  

“Morgan?” Thomas’ big hand covered hers for a moment. “What’s wrong?”  

God only knew what her face looked like, to bring that reaction out of Thomas as upset as he was. 

She opened her fist and let Thomas take the little thing out of it. Wrapped as carefully as she could in strips she’d furiously ripped from her own clothing in Philadelphia.  

She turned and buried her face in his shoulder so that she didn’t have to see him unwrap it.  

Broken. Warped. Abused. 

“Morgan, is this –“ 

“Can you fix him?” Her voice snagged on a sob that she had spent a long time holding in.  It should have felt silly, using a human pronoun for a mechanical toy, but she knew Thomas, of all people, would understand.  

They had spent a long six months together, her and her Little Bird. Locked away. He’d listened to her rant when her latest escape attempt came to nothing. When Gregory had gleefully warned her that she'd just used up her final permitted denial.  Sometimes she'd asked him to sing at a special thin patch in the  wall so that she could cry into her pillow and not get pitying looks from her next-door neighbour the next morning.  

Little Bird's cheerful singing had made the room seemed larger and the air seem less heavy. His tiny dark eyes were always friendly and understanding.  He had reminded her of her friends. The outside world. The open sky.  

Now he didn't move. And he didn't sing.  

"How ..." Thomas swallowed. His voice was strangled, worse than her own. "How do you still have him?" 

Of course. It must feel like a lifetime ago that he had handed her the gift, as she was taken away. Before his own world fell apart.  

"I took him with me, of course, when we came to free you."  They both quivered at that memory. This time when she turned her face up towards Thomas, he caught her eye and held steady and even inclined his face down just a little so that she could reach to press her lips against his scratchy stubble. She took strength from that to continue.  "The Burners took him away in Philadelphia. I saw him again, in Beck's office, in a guard's hand. Looking like ... like this."  

She steeled herself to look at Little Bird again, at a golden shattered feather that she could see peeping above Thomas' cupped hands.  

"And I took him back." 

She shied hard away from that memory. The dark thing inside her stirred. 

Thomas didn’t say anything in response to that. His hands, where they held Little Bird, had finally stopped shaking

“Ah, _Spatzi_ ,” he said softly. “How did they hurt you?” He began to turn the bundle back and forth, peering at it closely.

Morgan rested her head on his shoulder and watched, fascinated. His hands were large, even if Rome had stolen their plumpness, and his fingertips were square and blunt, yet everything moved with such tender precision. 

A soft chime rang out as he touched something, and her heart jolted in her chest. 

“Can you remember his song?” Thomas asked without looking at her. 

Feeling utterly ridiculous, she hummed it. She could hear it so clearly in her head that it made her want to cry, but singing wasn’t her strong point.  

Somehow, Thomas must have found something useful in her tuneless buzzing, because he nodded. He’d pulled a tiny tool from his pocket and she bit her tongue to keep herself quiet as Little Bird began to lose even more of his shape. 

“It’s strange,” Thomas said, after a while. “I never thought I’d see anything I used to work on. I thought it was all lost.” He heaved a sigh. “It’s all so different.”

He fell silent after that. Focused. 

Morgan might not have been worried, but she could feel that tension was building in his shoulders. She'd been congratulating herself on finding something that calmed him, but now it seemed she was wrong. Again.

Next, he pricked his thumb on a sharp edge and didn’t react in any way as blood trickled languidly over the joint. 

His gaze looked odd, as well. Like someone forcing themselves to stare into a bright light.  

Oh, _fuck_. Wherever he’d gone in his head, it wasn’t good. 

And it was her fault. Again.

“Thomas.” He didn’t react. “ _Thomas_.”  God, the last thing she wanted to do was startle him again. She changed the rhythm with which she was stroking his back. “Come on, Thomas. Wake up. Come back.” Her voice caught on a sob. 

He gave a single convulsive shiver and turned his head to blink at her.  

“What?” His voice was brusque, but his expression looked like she’d just pulled him out of deep water.

 “Don’t think about it now. Please.” She put her hand on his wrist and rubbed it. “It’s late. You’ve not eaten, you’re tired. It can wait. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” 

“Are you sure? I can tell it’s important.” He looked bewildered. 

“You’re more important.”

“Am I?” he mumbled, and carefully tipped Little Bird into one hand so that he could rub his face with the other. He looked exhausted. 

“Yes!” She’d nearly shouted that. Thomas looked at her with surprise, then managed a respectably realistic grin.

“Morgan the Motivator,” he teased. She sighed and poked him in the side.

“Here,” she said. “You should eat.” She dove back into her pocket and this time retrieved the cake successfully. He looked at it with marked unenthusiasm.  

“I probably should.” He leaned forwards to place Little Bird safely on the bedside table. 

She felt a sharp pang, watching the bird move further away from her than he had been since the Iron Tower, but shook it off. He’d be safe with Thomas.  

As soon as Thomas’ hands were empty, they started to shake again. Morgan gripped one of them, hard, and held it in front of his face to show him. 

“You definitely should,” she said. “Sugar always helps.” He raised his eyebrows at that, but obediently took the cake in his free hand and bit off a piece. "I can fix him," he said after a few moments of grimly determined chewing.  

"Not tonight," Morgan reiterated firmly. He chewed some more, and swallowed with an effort.  

"He won't be quite the same," he continued, as if she'd not spoken. "But..." His gaze wandered to the Blank he'd thrown, lying dolefully on the floor with its spine cracked. "I suppose then he'll match the rest of us." 

She had no idea how to respond to that, so she just reached up to smooth his disastrous hair back into a semblance of tidiness. "You should get some rest." 

"That went so well, before. As you can see, I am rejuvenated and carefree." He bit into the cake again with an angry chomp. Crumbs fell onto the bedsheets and he brushed them free, then flexed his still trembling hand. At that moment he reminded her fiercely of Wolfe.

"Oh, Thomas." She leant into him in an awkward, sideways hug. He leant his head on top of hers and sighed.  

"That was rude. I apologise." 

"You've nothing to apologise for. Look, come with me.” If Thomas wouldn’t go back to sleep for fear of himself, then at least they could keep him company. "I left Jess and Glain fighting over the rules of some boardgame we found in a cabinet so there -" 

She'd been about to say _There might be blood_ _spilt_ , but she choked herself off. None of them really had the foggiest clue what might upset Thomas, but that particular turn of phrase seemed like a bad idea. 

He lifted his head and looked at her for a long moment. Like he was guessing what she’d avoided saying.

"There might not be a room left anymore, with those two let loose." His tone was mild.  

"Yes," she agreed.

“Well. Second stage of the intervention; boardgames. What are we waiting for?” The sarcasm was biting, but his expression, when he stood and looked down at her, was soft. 

She took his offered hand and let him pull her to her feet. 

As they left, companionably arm in arm, she cast one more look over her shoulder at the glinting fragments of Little Bird. Hope, renewed.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Mein kleine vogel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21451417) by [blklightpixie26](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blklightpixie26/pseuds/blklightpixie26)




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